Regular mice just aren't good enough anymore. New mice have got to be optical, or have hundreds of buttons, or have multiple scroll wheels or… they have to vibrate? So thinks Logitech, judging by their new optical mouse, the iFeel. So how do I feel about the iFeel?

At ECTS this year it was made clear to me that Logitech is marketing this as quite a different beast from the Force Feedback Mouse (ok, so I in fact kept unintentionally calling it a Force Feedback Mouse and got corrected each time). For one, it is no longer permanently attached to a chunky base unit. Instead, there is a little device inside to make the unit vibrate at given moments. While this does mean the iFeel can't simulate resistance, such as you'd feel when pushing down on a spring, it's a heck of a lot nicer to use since you can lift it off the desk. It's also targeted towards the consumer market rather than at gamers. While a mouse with a rumble pack might not seem much use to your average computer user, the intention is to make using a computer a more tactile, and as a result, a more intuitive experience.

The iFeel comes in two flavours – you have the regular iFeel Mouse and the iFeel Mouseman, and both look the same as their regular Logitech optical counterparts apart from a light blue/grey top. If you're not familiar with these mice, the Mouseman Optical is wedge shaped like the original Mouseman with a slightly larger thumb button and smaller buttons that unfortunately don't reach the edge of the mouse like they used to for some reason. The smaller regular mouse has two buttons instead of three, no fancy glowing blue Logitech logo like the Mouseman Optical has (call me easily impressed) and again the buttons don't reach the edge of the mouse like they used to. Shame, really. Pictured below is the regular iFeel and a regular Optical Mouseman to give you an idea of how they look. Which of the two iFeel mice you'll prefer depends on whether you're left handed (go for the regular iFeel), or if you prefer higher, wedge shaped mice with more buttons (go for the iFeel Mouseman) or prefer flat mice and don't mind having only two buttons (again, regular iFeel).